Norwegian Cruise Lines has announced necessary delays and cancellations for its Prima-class ship Norwegian Prima and Norwegian Viva respectively. In April, the cruise line announced that Norwegian Prima‘s inaugural sailing – originally scheduled for August 17, 2022, had to be cancelled due to supply chain challenges.

The delay and cancellations are due to the ongoing global supply shortages that are impacting work at shipyards, including construction work on new vessels.

Norwegian Viva, the sister ship to the upcoming Norwegian Prima, will be delayed by at least two weeks in 2023. In a communication sent to guests and travel partners, Norwegian Cruise Line announced the following:

“We regretfully inform you that as a result of the global supply chain constraints impacting industries worldwide and the related downstream construction delays at the shipyard building our next class of ships, Norwegian Viva’s June 15, 2023, and June 24, 2023 sailings have been cancelled.”

The 142,500-gross-ton Norwegian Viva is currently under construction at the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, Italy, as is her sister ship, Norwegian Prima. Impacted guests will receive a full refund automatically processed back to their original form of payment.

While further details of exactly what supply chain issues have had such dramatic impacts on these two new vessels have not been confirmed, many construction industries are suffering from a lack of materials that are leading to manufacturing delays. This type of delay can quickly snowball a shipyard’s entire schedule, pushing back timelines for multiple vessels.

Disney Cruise Line’s new Disney Wish, for example, had 12 sailings cancelled, which delayed its debut from June 9 until July 14, 2022. While the Omicron COVID-19 variant was cited as the main reason for that delay, supply chain issues are also likely to have been part of the cause.